Newsletter

City to pick train station

St. Augustine will be moving forward next week with designating a train station for Amtrak service on the Florida East Coast tracks from Jacksonville to Miami.

City staff will recommend that the city commissioners designate an existing building at San Marco Avenue and U.S. 1 west of downtown as the train station. Commissioners will consider the recommendation at their meeting Monday.

The building, owned by Florida East Coast, served as a passenger rail station before the company stopped offering passenger service in the late '60s, said Mark Knight, director of planning for St. Augustine.

The cost of renovating the building is still being determined. The city will build the station but might get reimbursed by the federal government.

Knight said this was the best location, since a building is already up that is in decent shape. The structure is being used for storage.

State officials are asking St. Augustine to designate a train station that can be up and running in the next few years because the Florida Department of Transportation will soon be requesting stimulus funds to have Amtrak trains run on the Florida East Coast line from Jacksonville to Miami.

All eight cities on the line need to have train stations designated for the federal government to consider the stimulus request, said Kim Delaney, growth management coordinator for the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council, which has taken the lead in advocating for this project.

The state has estimated that it will cost about $268 million to bring Amtrak service to Florida East Coast tracks. The state now uses CSX tracks that go through the middle of the state.

Long-term St. Augustine wants to consider a second location at U.S. 1 and Carrera Street on the western edge of downtown. The site is now an open field along the east bank of the San Sebastian River within walking distance of the historic district.

"It would not be timely to designate this as our preferred location right now since there isn't an existing building," said Knight, while adding that it's also not clear how much it will cost to build a new station.

But city officials believe a train station in the long haul could help redevelop this area and also serve as a traffic calming device on U.S. 1, he said.

City officials will recommend against a third location adjacent to the Northeast Florida Regional Airport at St. Augustine. This vacant parcel of land is north of U.S. 1 and west of the airport.

It's too far from downtown, Delaney said.

Airport officials have expressed frustration over this, arguing that an airport and train station provide similar services.

"Building a train station somewhere else would be a duplication of services," said Edward Wuellner, executive director of the St. Augustine-St. Johns County Airport Authority.

Wuellner concedes that the City Commission will choose the San Marco location on Monday. But he hopes to talk with officials with Amtrak and the Florida Department of Transportation to convince them the airport is the best long-term site.

Technically Amtrak and the state make the final decision, but both have deferred to the local governments when it comes to deciding where train stations will go.